Crabs represent a hugely diverse group including brachyuran crabs, porcelain crabs, lithode crabs, squat lobsters, hermit crabs, and so on.  For convenience, they are considered in this single section in the ODYSSEY.  Much more work has been done on brachyuran crabs (Dungeness crabs, rock crabs, shore crabs) than on all of the rest of the groups combined.

NOTE  references to “crabbe”, “crabban”, and “crabben” are common in English literature dating from as early as the 11th C., doubtless because of their good taste and commercial interest.  Crabs along with shrimps, hermit crabs, lobsters, and crayfishes are classified in the Order Decapoda in the Subphylum Crustacea

NOTE  most applied research on crabs on this coast focusses on Dungeness crabs Cancer magister.  While many studies on this species are included in the ODYSSEY, a huge volume of commercial- and fisheries-oriented research papers is left out. As one example, the California Department of Fish and Game’s Dungeness Crab Research Program (1974-80), published in an entire journal volume, is omitted: Life history, environment, and mariculture studies of the Dungeness crab, Cancer magister, with emphasis on the Central California Fishery Resource (Wild & Tasto, eds.) 1983 Calif Fish Bull 172 pp. 1-352

Phylum Arthropoda (lit. “jointed legs” G.)

Subphylum Crustacea (lit. “crust or rind” L.), referring to the hard calcified exoskeleton

Class Malacostraca includes all the “advanced” crustaceans

Order Decapoda (lit. “ten feet” G.);  however, in all groups at least one of the 5 pairs of walking appendages is modified into claws, and in some groups (e.g., lithode crabs and hermit crabs) the 5th pair is modified or lost

         Suborder Pleocyemata

Infraorder Brachyura including the so-called “true” crabs

Infraorder Anomura including porcelain, lithode, galatheid, mole, sand crabs, and hermit crabs